


Consequential

by redcandle17



Series: Something Real [4]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 10:20:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4344764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/pseuds/redcandle17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The consequences of Toast's liaison with Slit become undeniable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The sound is so soft that Toast almost dismisses it as nothing. But then she hears it again. She finds Capable sitting on the floor in the lavatory, weeping. 

There had been no need to hide their sorrow from each other before the escape. Before, they’d all known the same pain and had comforted each other the best they could. But then they’d escaped and, in getting free, they’d lost Angharad. They’d all loved and respected Angharad, but Capable had been the closest to her, had been her best friend. And Capable had lost Nux, too, the War Boy she’d found to love for so briefly. 

Toast slides down to sit beside Capable and puts her arm around her. Before the Citadel, she’d had brothers but no sisters. Their shared captivity within the vault had made her and Joe’s other ‘wives’ into a sisterhood, and it hurt her to see her sister hurting now. 

“What is it?” she asked, deciding not to simply assume it was grief over Angharad and Nux, just in case something had happened recently to make Capable cry like this. 

Capable parts her legs instead of answering in words, and Toast sees her lower garments dark with blood. Oh. It’s their woman’s moon time. She will be getting hers later today or tomorrow; she’d forgotten because she hasn’t felt tired or bloated like usual. But she understands now why Capable is distraught. 

“You were hoping to have his baby.” 

Capable nods. “We only did it the once, but I’d been hoping. I could even see what the baby would look like, how it’d have his eyes.” 

Nux had had beautiful eyes. They’d been large, expressive, and the most striking blue in color. Toast had noticed it once he’d no longer been trying to kill Furiosa and recapture them, when instead he’d been cuddled with Capable like he’d found something he’d never realized he was looking for. 

Toast doesn’t have any words to comfort Capable. Telling her she’ll meet another man and fall in love again one day won’t make her feel any better right now. And it might not even be true. The world used to be different, according to Miss Giddy and the books. There used to be an abundance of everything, including chances at love. But the world is dead and this is the wasteland, and it’s hard for love to sprout when nothing else grows. 

Toast doesn’t bleed that day or the next day. The moon waxes and wanes and turns dark again and she still hasn’t bled. She doesn’t want to believe it. But the moon cycles twice more and she can’t keep denying it. 

There is only one man’s it could be, since she and her sisters had all finished bleeding just a day before their escape. Toast laughs. She laughs and laughs and she can hear the hysterical edge to it, but she can’t stop. 

Cheedo and the Dag come running, looking worried when they can see no cause for her amusement. The Dag’s belly is round now, though she’s still thinner than Toast sometimes worries a pregnant woman should be. 

“He’d be rolling in his grave,” she tells them. “If the Wretched hadn’t eaten him and he had a grave.” 

“Joe?” Cheedo queries uncertainly.

“Just imagine the look on his ugly face if he knew some half life War Boy did in a couple of nights what it took him hundreds of tries to do once.” 

The Dag gets it instantly. “Well, at least it won’t be ugly like mine will be. Unless you did it with an ugly one?” She looks disappointed in Toast at this possibility.

Toast pictures how Slit would look if he’d never been a War Boy. “No,” she says. “It wouldn’t be ugly. But it won’t _be_ at all. It’s only a matter of time until it dies and bleeds out of me.” 

“It might not,” the Dag says. 

“It will,” Toast assures her. The War Boys are all sick and dying, everyone in the Citadel knows that. 

Capable congratulates her warmly that evening over dinner, although Toast know that inside she must be raging at the unfairness of it. Toast brushes aside the well wishes and just says she’d rather miscarry sooner rather than later. 

This pregnancy is not like her previous one. Last time she’d felt a continuous sense of violation, all too aware of Joe’s hellspawn inside her even if she couldn’t feel it physically. She’d been so happy to miscarry, despite Joe’s rage and her subsequent punishment. This time she feels almost sorry that this baby is doomed to die before it ever lives. 

There are other differences. She’s in a near constant state of arousal. No matter how many times she brings herself off, it’s not enough. She can’t help but notice the War Boys and Repair Boys walking around the Citadel bare-chested. Was that the real reason Joe had never given them shirts, because the sight of their bare muscular torsos was so very appealing?

She’s avoided Slit since that morning he’d ruined what budding hope she’d had. Though given that she’s assumed helping Furiosa oversee the defense of the Citadel - or rather, she’s learning to defend it - it’s probable she’s only succeeded in avoiding him because he is avoiding her too. 

Until the morning she goes to check on the training of the oldest group of War Pups, the ones almost Cheedo’s age, at the cusp of manhood. A War Boy is yelling at them. “Mediocre!” he shouts. “You’re all mediocre!” He turns and strides away from them angrily. 

It’s Slit and the sight of him walking in her direction stops her where she stands. His body and the way he moves is… She wants him inside her _now_. 

He is painted white with engine grease darkening the upper part of his face and he has that knife sheath on his arm he’d had the night he… Even that memory only arouses her further now. The last time she’d seen him like this was when he’d been part of a War Boy raiding party that destroyed her family and captured her to be a breeder for Joe. The sight of him should make her angry and perhaps feel a ghost of fear, but she feels only desire. It’s an effect of the pregnancy hormones, she knows that. 

Slit’s stride falters when he spots her, and Toast moves towards him without making any conscious decision to do so. She’s proud of how cool and collected she sounds when she asks, “Why were you yelling at the boys?” 

She and her sisters have been trying to stop the young boys from calling themselves pups - it’s a dehumanization tactic Joe used to make them battle fodder instead of people - but they seem proud of being War Pups and Furiosa had told her and Capable to learn which battles to pick.

“None of them can throw a lance straight.”

“Then teach them.” 

“I was trying,” he grits out, and she realizes he’s controlling his urge to snap at her. She wonders if his restraint is because she outranks him or another reason. 

“Try harder. Be patient with them.” 

He doesn’t reply. 

Toast can barely control her desire to touch him. “Come to my room tonight,” she offers quietly. 

His surprise is obvious. 

Toast doesn’t give him a chance to say or do anything that will make her regret it. She leaves him watching her and maybe there is a bit more sway in her hips than usual as she walks away, but she blames that on the hormones too. 

 

Cheedo and the Dag are in the room they still share, but Capable is sitting among the stacks of books, looking for ones that will be easy for the little War Pups to understand. Toast thinks she should speak with her before Slit arrives. Not that she needs Capable’s permission, no more than Capable had needed anyone’s permission to be with Nux. But she doesn’t want to be the cause of Capable suffering any more hurt. 

“You, ah, haven’t asked me who the father is,” Toast says. 

Capable looks up in surprise. “I didn’t want to pry.” 

Toast appreciates that Capable understands her need for space and privacy after the enforced closeness of being locked up in the vault for so long. “It’s your Nux’s lancer, Slit.”

“Oh,” Capable exclaims. “I tried to talk to him about Nux, but he… wasn’t very nice.”

It doesn’t surprise Toast to hear that Slit is not nice. “I could make him apologize,” she says. She doesn’t know why she thinks she could do that, why he would do it if she told him, but it feels true. 

“Don’t bother. I should have expected it. The War Boys still think Nux was a traitor.” Capable smiles a forced smile. “The little ones think he’s a hero now though.” She’s forcing herself to focus on the good instead of the bad, on the promise of a brighter future instead of the grim past and her hard present. Capable had idolized Angharad, but Toast realizes that Capable is every bit as strong and visionary as Angharad was.

“He was brave. It couldn’t have been easy flipping the rig when he knew Joe was dead and there was no Valhalla to go to.”

“He’s gone somewhere far better than Valhalla, I’m sure of it.” Capable gets to her feet and gathers an armful of books. She has her own need for private space now. “Good night, Toast.”

“Have sweet dreams.”

It occurs to Toast as she waits that Slit might not show up. And even if he does, maybe she shouldn’t let it be so obvious that she’d been waiting for him. She gets up with the intention of grabbing a book to pretend to read - and she sees him. 

One of the first things they’d done upon returning to the Citadel was have the vault door removed and taken away. None of them had wanted to step inside the Dome until that hated door was gone. Slit is standing in the doorway, seemingly hesitant to actually step inside. 

Toast has to remind herself of how significant this must be for a War Boy. The Dome had been Joe’s private quarters where he kept his treasures locked up - no War Boy had ever set foot inside it. Until she’d insisted Slit be moved to her bedroom. And he probably hadn’t stopped to take in the sights after she’d ordered him out. 

“Come in.”

He doesn’t move with that confident stride she’d admired earlier in the day, but the sight of his perfectly muscled body coming towards her is enough to rekindle her desire. The knife sheath is no longer on his arm and there seems to be fewer things hanging from his trousers - the War Boy equivalent of preparing for a tryst, perhaps. It makes her smile, though she wishes he’d also wiped off the white paint and the engine grease. 

He opens his mouth to say something, and Toast puts a finger across his lips. “Not a word. Don’t speak.” 

She takes his hand and leads him into her bedroom. “Just fuck me,” she says. “No talking.” 

It seems to make him angry, and if she’s being fair, Toast would acknowledge that he has a right to be angry. He seizes a handful of her hair and jerks her head back, tilting her face up to him and then he’s kissing her forcefully. Toast doesn’t mind. 

Or at least she doesn’t until she thinks about how much her hair has grown back since… She’d cut it to spite Joe, and while she’d expected him to punish her for it, she hadn’t expected him to do what he’d done. 

She blinks and finds herself lying on her back with Slit above her. She doesn’t remember how they got on the bed or how much time has passed. Slit isn’t touching her. He’s just looking at her, and he looks worried, frightened almost. 

She tries to pull his head down to her breasts. “Keep going.”

“I don’t want to.” He sounds puzzled, as if he himself doesn’t understand why he’s refusing. He swings his legs over the side of the bed, like he’s about to get up. 

Toast grabs his arm. “Please stay.” 

She sits back against the headboard and draws her knees up, hugging them to her chest. Slit stretches out beside her.

 _No shoes on the bed,_ her Gran would say. Even when the ‘bed’ was a blanket on the floor. 

“You sleep with your boots on?” she says to Slit, but there’s no edge to her voice. 

He accepts it as the invitation it is, pulling off his boots. He slides off his trousers too, and Toast can see he meant it about not wanting to. She wonders what she said or did to affect him like that. 

“Do you remember your mother?”

She honestly doesn’t know what she would have done if he’d spouted some nonsense about War Boys not having mothers. Fortunately for them both, he answers simply, “No.”

“I try not to think about mine. When…” _When you brought me here,_ she could say. She says, “When I first got here, I used to dream about my mother. I’d dream she was hooked up to a machine, being milked like an animal, like the milkers Joe showed me. Or I’d dream she was being raped by somebody who looked like Joe, screaming for help with no one to help her. Then I decided she was dead, she had to be dead. I’d rather she be dead than alive like that.”

Slit doesn’t say anything. Toast isn’t expecting him to. She isn’t sure how much of what she’s saying he even understands. 

She lies down beside him and puts her head on his chest, and this time he puts his arm around her without her having to move it there herself. 

“Last time you said being one of the Immortan’s wives made you want to die. Why didn’t you do it?”

“I don’t know. I thought about it. I just never tried to do it.” She’d hated herself for that for a while, for being too much of a coward to escape Joe the only way it’d seemed she could. 

Toast touches the metal in his cheek. “Tell me you didn’t do this to yourself on purpose.”

“Nah. Some feral tried to take my head off. Organic stitched me up and thought I’d like these ‘staple’ things. Chrome, aren’t they?”

He’s obviously proud and thinks he looks good mutilated like this, so Toast just says, “That’s one word for it.”

She lets her fingers trail all across him aimlessly. There’s scarcely an inch of him that isn’t covered in scars, either intentional scarification or battle scars. She’d be scarred worse than him if the things she’d suffered showed on her skin. But Joe had been good at finding ways to hurt and humiliate that wouldn’t leave unsightly marks on his beautiful treasures. 

“What did you want for your life?”

“Die historic and ride eternal in Valhalla,” comes the predictable response.

“That’s what Joe wanted you to want,” she retorts. “But we both know you wanted things you weren’t supposed to have.” 

He can’t deny that, but it seems to embarrass him. He squirms in her arms and won’t look at her. Finally he mutters, “Don’t understand why you want me now if you were so upset about _that_.”

Her reply is flippant. “Because you looked so shiny and chrome chained naked to my bed.”

She’s not ready to think about it, except perhaps to acknowledge to herself that she feels connected to him precisely because he and his role in her life had been so dark. It reminds her of what’s real, grounding her when she sometimes gets swept up in her sisters’ and even Furiosa’s dream of utopia. 

Toast pokes one of his stomach staples. “You didn’t answer what I asked.”

“Be the best lancer. Get a pursuit vehicle and become a better driver than Nux. Fuck shiny females.” His hand slides down to cup her ass, as if to remind himself he’s lived one of his life goals. 

Toast can’t bring herself to be offended by it. “Know what I wanted?” she asks, and she feels him tense, as if bracing himself. 

“A place with plenty of water and food, a place my family and I could be safe. A cute boy to love. A strong man to raise a family with. Healthy children, and a long life. To be happy.” 

Slit doesn’t respond. Toast knows how alien and incomprehensible what she just told him must seem. But then he rolls onto his side and wraps his other arm around her as well. It’s a good feeling to fall asleep to.


	2. Chapter 2

Toast wakes up alone. She’s disappointed, and then she’s annoyed at herself for feeling disappointed. It shouldn’t matter. It’s not like she cares about Slit, and anyway, she can’t expect a War Boy to know it’s insulting to sneak out of someone’s bed without saying anything. 

She spends the morning taking inventory of the Citadel’s ammunition with the armorer, who seems to have no other name but ‘Armorer’. He’s unpainted and old enough to be her father, but he has the same scarifications as a War Boy. Was there such a thing as a former War Boy? She doesn’t ask. 

She makes it all the way to noon before she can no longer refrain from seeking out Slit. She only planned to issue him another invitation to her bed, but by the time she finds him, those damn hormones have her wet and needy. And he looks so good.

She grabs his scarf and he allows her to drag him towards an empty repair bay. It’s almost silly the way he wears a scarf but no shirt, but right now it’s very handy. Toast pushes him backward onto a huge tire lying on its side and she’s already pulling her shirt over her head as she crawls on top of him. 

He has a comically shocked expression on his face, but he kisses her back readily enough and his hands begin to caress her breasts. Toast is already so, so ready. She gets Slit’s belt unbuckled and unzips his trousers. He’s soft and she’s too impatient to stroke him. She bends her head and takes his cock into her mouth. 

He swears and hardens rapidly. Toast keeps sucking, enjoying the texture and the feel of him in her mouth. She only means this as foreplay, though, so she’s not happy when his seed fills her mouth suddenly. She swallows instinctively and glares at him. 

“Sorry,” he mutters.

Toast sits back on her heels, and Slit tucks away his spent cock and zips up. That displeases her further. “We’re not finished,” she says. 

“I know.” 

He picks her up and sets her on the hood of the nearest car. The black pants she got from a Pup fits too well to need a belt and as Slit struggles to peel them down her legs, Toast makes a mental note to acquire a larger pair in case she doesn’t miscarry soon. He looks so triumphant when he finally gets them off that she almost laughs but she doesn’t because it’s also arousing. 

“You can use a knife if you want.”

To say he looks surprised would be a vast understatement. He looks like it’s the last thing he ever expected to hear. “You sure?” he asks.

“I’m sure.”

She can count three knives on him at a glance, but the one that ends up in his hand isn’t one of those three. She wonders if he has even more and other weapons as well in those pockets, but then the tip of his blade is circling one of her nipples and it drives all thoughts out of her head. 

There’s an immediacy to this that surpasses normal touch. Toast focuses on Slit’s face as the knife moves over her body. She can see the intense concentration and the dark excitement, but there’s something else she can’t read, something that increases when their eyes meet. 

He puts the knife back where it came from suddenly, and grabs her thighs and pulls her to the very edge of the car. He drops to his knees and presses his face against her cunt. Toast gasps in surprise. 

She quickly realizes that he’d been paying attention that night she’d straddled his face and had him lick her cunt. That he’d memorized her instructions. As good as the physical sensations are, what really leaves Toast shaken is the realization that Slit had memorized how to please her and that he’s doing it now unasked for. 

He doesn’t stop after she comes either. She has to tell him bluntly, “I want you inside me now.” She has to amend it, because his tongue is inside her, “I want your cock inside me.” 

He looks very pleased with himself as he stands and licks his lips and begins unbuckling his belt. He’s earned the right to be smug, though, and Toast feels an alarming rush of something like affection. 

But then his cock fills her cunt at last and she’s beyond caring about less tangible feelings. She just wants to be fucked. 

“Come on, War Boy, you can fuck harder than that.”

That’s better. She’s going to be sore tomorrow, but she doesn’t mind. 

She opens her eyes after coming, head turned to the side, and realizes there’s a Pup standing there watching. He’s an older Pup, old enough to be rubbing himself through his trousers as he watches. Toast gives a startled yelp. 

“Go away,” she yells. 

Slit is still fucking her and seems to think she’s talking to him. “Right now?!”

“Not you. There was a Pup watching us.” 

He looks where she points, but the Pup is gone now. Toast knows it’s her own fault for being unable to wait for privacy. She tries not to let it spoil this. She reaches for Slit and he leans down so she can kiss him. This probably isn’t comfortable for him, but he seems to like kissing her while he fucks her. 

When he comes, Toast finds herself thinking amusedly that it’s not like he can get her more pregnant. He’s still leaning above her and she holds him because it feels right. She touches the tumor behind one of his ears, feeling some sort of bitter satisfaction at the reminder that the child inside her can’t survive long. 

“Been there for thousands of days,” he murmurs. “Thought the night fevers would follow, but they never came.” 

Toast feels a rush of something she refuses to examine and deems to be panic. She pushes Slit away and gathers her clothes. 

Slit is watching her as she gets dressed and he looks almost wary. 

Toast wants to kiss him, so she doesn’t. She does tell him, “Wash off that paint and the engine grease before you come to bed tonight.” 

 

There’s no paint or grease on him when he shows up to the vault that night. However there are fresh bruises on his face and torso. Toast suppresses the instinctive impulse to ask if he’s okay and what happened. By the self-satisfied look on his face, it’s obvious he’s more than okay. 

He throws her onto the bed and throws himself on top of her. Kisses her aggressively. Toast is trying to decide whether she likes it or not, when he bites her neck hard. 

She pushes at him, and he rolls off her. 

“I’m not in the mood for it like that.”

Slit exhales loudly, frustration and irritation evident. 

Toast is almost hoping he will do or say something that will leave her with no choice but to order him gone. 

But he gets his aggression under control. His voice is even when he asks, “Then how do you want it?”

Toast doesn’t answer. She’s not sure what she wants. She touches the smooth, unscarred skin of his chest. It’s a prominent area not to have scarred up like the rest of him; it has to be intentional. “Saving this spot for something special?” she asks. 

“Something like that,” he replies. 

“So I don’t suppose you’d let me carve my name here?” She means it as a joke, but Slit’s reaction surprises her. 

He inhales sharply. “Yes,” he hisses. He grabs the back of her head and pulls her close enough to kiss. He hesitates then, apparently remembering her earlier rejection. 

She kisses him briefly, and then informs him, “I was joking. I’m not going to cut you up.”

“I want you to.”

That’s just too extreme for Toast. “No,” she says firmly. “I like that there’s a part of you that isn’t scarred.” She says it to discourage him, but as she says it, she realizes that it’s also true. 

Later, when they’re both sated and Toast can sense Slit falling asleep, she tells him, “Don’t leave until I’m awake.”

So, really, it’s her own fault that Toast is awakened at the crack of dawn by hands running over most of her. She’s torn between the desire for more sleep and for sex. But when she feels Slit’s lips on the back of her neck, it’s clear which desire is stronger. 

“It’s early,” she complains, even as she turns to face him. 

“I have to wake the Pups up and make them do their calisthenics. But you said not to leave until you were awake.” 

She hooks a leg around him. “Then you’d better make it quick.”

She goes back to sleep after he leaves, and awakens hours later feeling quite good. The day goes well initially, but then Furiosa gathers her, and Capable, and Cheedo, and The Dag, as well as the two Vuvalini women. 

“The Buzzards hit a supply convoy on its way from the Bullet Farm. Luckily it was all Bullet Farmers. If they’d managed to hit our boys…” She shakes her head. 

They have too few warriors. If they lose the few they have, they’ll be defenseless. So Toast is dumbstruck by what Furiosa says next. 

“The Bullet Farm’s refusing to replace the stolen cargo. Said it happened within our territory and it was our responsibility to keep our area cleared of vermin. And they’re right.”

Toast and the former wives exchange glances, each uncertain what to say. The Dag voices what they’re all wondering. “You want to go to war against the Buzzards?” Her tone is incredulous, betrayed. 

The Vuvalini, on the other hand, look unsurprised. 

“We don’t have enough War Boys,” Capable says firmly. She sounds angrier than Toast has heard her in a long time. 

“The oldest batch of War Pups are ready to become War Boys,” Furiosa replies, and Toast understands why Capable is so angry. 

She is angry too. “We didn’t go through all that happened so we can send children to die!” 

Furiosa looks weary. “If we don’t do something, we’ll have problems with Gas Town next. They’re already insisting on getting double water for the same amount of gasoline.” 

Gen lays a hand on Toast’s back and Toast can see Patrice wrapping an arm around Capable’s shoulders. “It was only a matter of time until some man decided this place was an easy target now that women are in charge. Furiosa has to show them we’re strong enough to protect what’s ours.” 

Toast gets even angrier because she knows it’s true. It’s necessary and unavoidable. “When?” she asks.

“A couple of days from now,” Furiosa says.


	3. Chapter 3

Even as her feet carry her to the Organic Mechanic’s, Toast knows this is bad timing. Knows she’s looking for a fight. She is the Knowing, after all. She laughs at herself bitterly, prompting a frail-looking War Boy to flatten himself against the cavern wall to give her wide berth. That one’s at the end of his half life. 

They’ve arranged a system of extra food and water and minor privileges for people willing to donate blood. The donors are free to live their own lives, summoned only when needed, and Toast herself had strongly impressed upon the Organic Mechanic and his helpers that these people are not ‘blood bags’, that they are to be treated with respect. 

But the blood is for saving the lives of those who’ve suffered blood loss through injury, and for the War Boys who only need occasional transfusions. There’s no wasting blood to keep alive someone who needs fresh blood as often as he needs food. 

A thought occurs to her, and her initial impulse is to suggest it to Furiosa, but Toast decides that Furiosa is already overburdened making hard decisions. Toast decides to take on this burden herself. 

“How many War Boys do we have at death’s door?” she asks the Organic Mechanic without preliminaries. 

“Three. The same three who were too sick to ride out with Joe. Didn’t have our Nux’s balls to take a blood bag out on the road with them. No wonder Capable fell for him, eh?”

“Give them a transfusion tomorrow and tell them they’re riding out with Furiosa the day after the next.” 

They’re nearly dead anyway. From what she understands of the War Boy way, they’ll be compelled to seek a glorious death in battle. Perhaps their sacrifice can limit the overall casualties. Better them than Furiosa or the young boys. It doesn’t stop her from feeling guilty and ashamed, but she’s done worse to survive. 

“The others, how long do they have?”

The Organic Mechanic smirks at her knowingly. “Anyone in particular?”

Toast wants to slap him. “How long can a War Boy live if he doesn’t get himself killed? That Armorer looks twice my age.”

He answers seriously for once. “They’re all suffering from their parents’ radiation exposure, but honestly no more than half of them are certain to die young of sickness. Once they make it past a certain age, they’ve got a good shot at a life as long as any ‘full life.’ Hell, the Ace was almost as old as Joe himself.”

“Can they father healthy children?”

The Organic Mechanic grins. He stares at her, his gaze dropping to her still flat belly before returning to her face. “We’re going to find out, aren’t we, Toasty? How far along are you?”

“Four moons,” she answers grudgingly. 

He starts giggling. “Four moons? Somebody took advantage of Slit being chained up. Not that he minded, I’m sure. He must be a good ride ‘cause I hear you’re still-”

She’s barely aware of sliding the sling off her shoulder and grasping the rifle in her hands. The butt of the rifle smashes into the Organic Mechanic’s face and he falls backwards onto his ass. He’s clutching his bloody face, and Toast really wants to put a bullet in his vile head. 

“You broke my nose,” he wails. 

“Fix it,” she replies blithely. “It’s your job, isn’t it?” 

 

She wants to tell Slit to go away when he shows up that night, but all three of the others are lounging in the main area of the vault and Toast really doesn’t want them to ask her what’s wrong. Especially since she suspects the Dag and Cheedo are only out and about this evening because they want to get a look at ‘her’ War Boy. 

Her suspicion is confirmed when the Dag gives Slit a bold once-over and then flashes a thumbs-up at her. Cheedo looks much more dubious. And Capable is smiling. Toast has no options but to hustle Slit into her bedroom and shut the door behind them. 

She rebuffs his attempt to kiss her and tells him, “I’m not in the mood.”

He looks puzzled, probably wondering what he’s doing here if she doesn’t want him for sex. He doesn’t question her though. He just reclines on the bed like he’s content to wait. 

She’s always known that it’s a hard world and that the struggle to stay alive and to keep what’s yours never ends. She’d known that the Citadel had external enemies and that they needed warriors to defend it. It’s why she’d devised a system of consenting blood donors even though she knows consent is merely a word when you offer a starving man an extra morsel of food. 

Toast tells herself she doesn’t know why she’s this upset, why now. But she knows. She curls her hands into fists to keep from touching her belly. 

“You look like you need a fight,” Slit comments. He’s suddenly off the bed and coming towards her.

Toast instinctively shrinks back, all too well aware that he’s much bigger and has spent his whole life in violence. 

He holds up his hands. “Hit me.” 

Toast swings at him, and he moves aside easily. 

“That was less than mediocre,” he says. 

That aggravates her enough to try to kick him in the balls, but he blocks it. 

Toast tires herself out trying to attack him, and in all that time she only manages to land a single blow. And she’s pretty sure Slit let her land that one. But she does feel better. 

“Got to teach you how to fight proper,” he says. He’s smiling like he’s had a good time too. 

Thanks, Toast wants to tell him. That was exactly what she’d needed. Instead she says, “I’m tired. I’m going to sleep, but you can stay if you want.”

She’s not surprised that he chooses to stay or that he puts his arm around her of his own volition. This routine they’re settling into feels right and comfortable, and that disturbs her. But one problem at a time. 

 

The morning of the attack Toast awakens to find Slit with his head propped up, just staring at her. She realizes for the first time that at just the right angle, without the paint and grease and even with the scars, his face looks good. 

“You should stick close to me today,” he says. “You’re a good shot, but if the Buzzards get close…” 

They both know she doesn’t know how to fight. It isn’t for lack of trying to learn, but the Vuvalini treat her too gingerly for her to actually learn. They seem to care about her pregnancy too much to risk real sparring. Despite this, Toast had fully expected to be part of the war party. Furiosa had decided differently. 

“I’ll be here, safe and sound. Furiosa is leaving me in charge of the Citadel.” It was just words, a consolation prize so she’d stop arguing and accept being left behind. Toast still thinks it’s only fair for her to be out there risking her neck too if they’re going to send little boys to war. 

Slit looks relieved and Toast realizes _he’d been worried about her_. She wonders if he’s still looking for a historic death to get him to Valhalla. She almost asks, but she doesn’t. Instead she straddles him. She traces the intricate scars on his stomach and then leans forward to kiss the flawless skin higher up on his chest. 

“No more scars. Can you promise that, or do I have to make it an order?”

“No more anywhere or just no more there?”

“No more scars anywhere on this body.”

His hands are on her breasts, squeezing the way she likes. Toast rues that she’s not tall enough to be able to kiss him and have him inside her at the same time. She thinks about it, then tells him, “Sit up.”

He obeys immediately. Toast guides his cock into her cunt, then puts her arms around his neck and kisses him. This is perfect. Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner? Her breasts rub against his chest with every movement of her hips. It doesn’t take long for her to come, her cries mingling with his kisses. 

Slit rolls over then, putting her on her back and fucking her hard and fast. Toast leans up to nip at his throat. She knows just where to bite to make him come, and when he moves to slide off of her, she holds him tighter and says, “Stay here.” She really does love the weight of him on her, loves the feel of it and how it should crush her but doesn’t.

When she finally releases him, she tells him, “Try not to let the Pups get killed. There’s no Valhalla for them to go to.” 

Slit doesn’t reply, but he nods. 

She should tell him not to go seeking Valhalla himself either, but she can’t bring herself to do it. Or maybe she refuses to let herself do it. Toast doesn’t trust her own thoughts and feelings anymore. 

They get dressed in silence. Slit turns back to look at her before he leaves the vault and for a moment it seems like he wants to say something, but thankfully he doesn’t. Toast heads across to Capable’s room. She knocks perfunctorily and lets herself in.

Capable is lying on the floor. Three of the smallest Pups are sleeping in her bed. Capable gives Toast a guilty, pleading look. “They’ve never slept in a real bed before.” 

Toast moves nearer to peer at them. They are adorable even painted up. “They’re cuter than the company I had last night.” 

“I’m glad you’re happy, Toast.”

“What makes you say that?” Toast certainly doesn’t feel happy.

“Well, I didn’t think you’d have Slit in your bed every night if he didn’t make you happy.”

“That has nothing to do with happiness,” Toast replies quickly. “It’s just biology. Hormones and things.” She changes the subject abruptly. “We’ve got to go see the war party off.” 

Capable gently wakes the boys and sends them to join the other Pups for their morning meal. Then the two of them head to Joe’s old suite for a last minute consultation with Furiosa and the Vuvalini. 

 

Once the war party has set off, the Dag leaves to go work in her garden and Cheedo goes with her. Toast knows she should go do something productive too, that she can’t help anyone by just standing here and looking down at the desert floor far below. But she keeps watching even after their warriors are out of sight. 

She hadn’t realized until now what being in charge means. If Furiosa doesn’t come back, then it will be her responsibility to keep the Citadel going. How will she protect its people without warriors? True, they have water and the means to produce food so they could live up here for a long time. But Joe had taken this place from the people who held it before him, which means that it’s possible for it to be taken by someone else. Toast feels panic rising until she feels sick. 

“It’s okay.” Capable’s arms are around her. “Breathe.”

Toast closes her eyes and forces herself to breathe in and out slowly. Again and again. Then she opens her eyes and gives Capable a grateful squeeze. She knows Capable has to be as terrified as she is right now, but Capable copes by supporting others. Always has. 

Some time later some boys bring them water and food. One of the younger ones begs Capable for a story and she obliges, telling them about the Christmas tradition Before, when a hero named Santa Claus celebrated his birthday by giving gifts to all the children in the world, travelling the whole world in one night in a cart pulled by winged beasts called ‘reindeer’. 

They beg for another story after that one, but Capable is firm and sends them off for their reading and writing lessons with a former Milk Mother. Toast thinks about what a great mother Capable would be - already is, in a way - and what a pity it is that she hadn’t been able to have a baby by the man whose baby she’d wanted. 

“Are they starting to flock to the Dag and Cheedo like this too?” she asks, because the Dag had mentioned how friendly the War Boys were acting lately, though she hadn’t sounded pleased about it. 

“The Pups? Not really. Though Cheedo did let them try to braid her hair the other day.”

“What’s made their big brothers decide to be friendly then?”

Capable doesn’t answer right away. She has an apologetic look on her face, and Toast knows she’s not going to like what she’s about to hear. 

“One of the Pups saw you and Slit being intimate and told the others and one of them told a War Boy. The War Boys think we’re, er, available to them now.” 

Toast recalls the almost dead War Boy who’d practically leapt out of her path when she’d gone to see the Organic Mechanic. “They haven’t been friendly to me.”

Capable starts twining a strand of her hair around her forefinger. Nervously. 

“Capable?” Toast demands, suspicious. 

“War Boys take things from each other only if the other War Boy can’t defend his possessions. They know we’re not things, but they don’t know any other way to behave.”

“Meaning?”

Capable sighs. “Meaning the other War Boys who expressed interest in you weren’t able to beat Slit in combat. They don’t have the right to approach you.” 

It’s clear that Capable expects Toast to be outraged. And Toast does resolve to make it clear to Slit that she does not belong to him. But she also knows what War Boys are capable of, and she’s relieved that she won’t have to deal with unwanted advances. There’s also a primal part of her that is savagely pleased to know that the father of her baby can defend her. 

“Toast?”

“So that’s where he got those bruises that night and why he was swaggering more than usual.” 

Capable looks relieved she didn’t help spoil what she clearly thinks is a relationship. Toast pulls her hair affectionately. 

She does start to wonder about something though. The other War Boys only realized their Immortan Joe’s wives were “available” to them after that Pup saw her and Slit fucking. That means that Slit never told them about her fucking him when he’d been chained to her bed. She’d always assumed that he’d bragged to his friends about that. But if everything that happens between them is as private for him as it is for her… 

Toast refuses to think about it anymore. She jumps up and grabs her rifle. “I should go check that everything’s going as it should,” she says. 

Capable nods, content to sit vigil alone. 

Toast checks on almost everything in the Citadel, from the water pump to the garages to the kitchen. Fortunately nothing is amiss. The Citadel isn’t falling apart. Not yet anyway. 

There’s still sunlight left when a Pup comes to find Toast to tell her that their war party has been sighted returning. She feels a twinge, like the beginning of cramping, in her belly. She thinks morbidly that this is possibly the best time to miscarry. Her would-have-been baby had a sense of humor. 

The Dag and Cheedo are with Capable when Toast returns to the prime overlook spot. The Dag is rubbing her belly. “Warlord Junior’s kicking like he wants to be out fighting,” she reports. But she sounds half-hearted. Toast has seen her browsing through the books for a good name for a girl. 

Capable is looking through a pair of binoculars. “Furiosa’s alive! She’s driving, she’s not hurt, at least not too bad. Both Vuvalini look good too.”

Toast hears her trying to count, trying to determine how many War Boys they’ve lost. She leaves her to it and goes to wait over by the platform lift. The guards are cautious and only lower it when the vehicles come to a stop right below and the passengers can be clearly identified. Toast approves. 

She greets Furiosa first. Assures her that “Everything’s just the way you left it.”

Furiosa gives her a ghost of a smile and nods. 

“Any losses?” Toast asks, refusing to look anywhere but at Furiosa. 

“Five. Two injured as well.” 

It’s Toast turn to nod. She embraces each of the Vuvalini, forehead to forehead. Only then does she let herself look at the War Boys. Of the six Pups just promoted to War Boy status, one is bleeding from two neat wounds to his chest and stomach, and two others are being lifted out lifeless. 

Toast thinks about the mothers who had given them to Joe’s cult in desperation, so that they could be fed and kept safe long enough to reach adulthood. She wonders if the old mothers among the Wretched study the war parties in hopes of recognizing a child not seen in five thousand days, if they make note of how many War Boys came back versus how many left. If they mourn each loss because each loss could be theirs. 

“Couldn’t stop to get the other bodies,” says a familiar voice quietly. “They died historic.”

Slit is holding a bloody rag pressed tight to his left shoulder. Toast examines the wound. “It’s not bad,” she says. “Keep it clean and it’ll heal fine on its own.” 

She doesn’t have the Organic Mechanic’s extensive knowledge, but where she’d grown up, there had been no Organic Mechanic or even any of what her Gran called ‘witch doctors’. 

The Dag is kneeling between the dead boys, a hand on each cold body, saying prayers of her own devising. When she’s done, Cheedo helps her to her feet. She holds her belly as if to protect her baby from the fate of the boys lying dead. 

And Toast realizes what the twinge she’d taken for a precursor to cramps was. It’s happening again, and it’s not the beginning of a miscarriage. It’s the quickening. Her baby, Slit’s baby, their baby is alive and stirring. 

“Toast,” Slit says. And Toast doesn’t remember him ever saying her name before.

It feels like she’s standing at the very edge of a cliff and losing her balance. Panic threatens to overwhelm her. 

“I’m pleased you’re alive,” she says, without emotion. “But don’t come to my bed again.”


End file.
